Conventional terminals, such as mobile telephones, have a detectable output, such as ringing tones, ringing tunes or the like, similar to ordinary telephones, which have mainly resembled the ringing of a clock. When a mobile phone of a specific make and model had one fixed ringing tone, however, problematic situations occurred. In this regard, when two users in the same space have the same type of mobile phone and, thus, the same kind of ringing tone, it can be confusing as to whose phone is actually ringing. This source of confusion has been ameliorated by making the ringing tone dependent on either the user's own telephone number or the telephone number of a caller. However, the ringing tones produced on the basis of two almost identical telephone numbers may sound so much alike, that it is difficult to distinguish one ringing tone from the other.
Further improvements to providing more distinguishable ringing tones have been made as mobile phones have become more advanced. Currently, mobile phones normally have several pre-stored ringing tones from which the user can select a preferred ringing tone. In addition to ordinary ringing tones, melodies from familiar pieces of music have been implemented as ringing tones from which a user may select. With the enormous increase in the use of mobile phones, it has turned out that even as many as ten different programmed ringing tones are sometimes not enough to satisfy mobile phone users. This situation has been improved by enabling ringing tones to be programmed by the user via the user interface of the telephone or other communication device. One technique has been presented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,766, where a user can input different kinds of parameters, which define a pulsed ringing tone sequence having parameters such as frequency, pulse length, the number of pulses in a group, period between pulses, the number of pulse groups, etc. Another technique for programming a ringing tone has been presented in Finnish Patent Application No. 960858, published Aug. 24, 1997, wherein it is possible to program a ringing tone as notes by inputting the notes graphically on a stave that is displayed on a display.
Another technique for programming a ringing tone utilizes the Internet, where Web sites exist from which users can download ringing tones, such as popular music, to their mobile phones. Such programming, however, generally requires the user to have access to a personal computer or other Internet device using browsers that support basic industry standards such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML). In this regard, recent developments in Internet protocols have resulted in the creation of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification. The WAP specification, in turn, operates according to the Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) or Wireless Markup Language (WML), and allows Internet content to be adapted for use on narrow bandwidth and limited screen size handheld devices such as mobile phones. Mobile phone manufacturers are currently beginning to embed high-value added applications such as WAP compliant micro-browsers in mobile phones that allow the mobile phones to function as a client for services and content from the Internet through a wireless portal. Thus, Web sites are beginning to offer ringing tones that can be delivered to mobile phones via WAP or other similar services.
Although a number of ringing tone programming techniques have been proposed, the programming of ringing tones through a user interface or utilizing the Internet has its disadvantages. Among the disadvantages is the fact that once a user has selected a particular ringing tone, the user must manually change the ringing tone each time the user desires to select a different ringing tone, such as by accessing a profile, accessing ringing tone settings and thereafter searching and selecting a different ringing tone. Thus, some users will select a ringing tone and then rarely alter the selected ringing tone, even though they grow somewhat tired of the selected ringing tone.